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Wednesday, 13 August 2014

Of Spire & Throne - Toll Of The Wound

I think I last featured Of Spire & Throne on here when I did a write-up on the Edinburgh scene. That was a while ago now and it's great to see that they're getting more exposure and working with Broken Limbs Productions is doing them no harm at all. It's been two years since they released their last EP Vagary, though they did release a split tape with 2013 UK touring partners Ortega. Toll Of The Wound has been released across multiple formats, including tape, CD and vinyl.

Tracklist:-

1. Legacy
2. Tower Of Glass
3. Cascading Shard

Imposing opener Legacy feels like it’s about to burst a proverbial blood-vessel, as the lone-guitar and drum intro heralds in the collective whole that is Of Spire & Throne. Deep growls coupled with low-slung instrumentation make their brand of doom feel like it’s already at the depths of despair. Just like the fog that enveloped Edinburgh earlier in the year and rendered visibility all but useless, Of Spire & Throne’s only aim is to paralyse you.

On Tower Of Glass, the organic production draws you further in. The drums sound as though they are being played right next to you and the relative quiet in-between the feedback provides glimpses of peaceful calm. A word of warning for the uninitiated though; this is as slow as doom is likely to get and in being so, needs time to be invested in it from the listener. You can’t just tune and out when you want to. The instrumental entirety of the song should be heard in one full sitting, as should the whole EP.

Of Spire & Throne leave the longest tome till last. Cascading Shard doesn’t feature quite the same, minimal atmosphere as Tower Of Glass but still holds enough menace to keep you transfixed. It sees a return of those morose screams, that fade in and out amongst the towering riffs. The bass-only passage just passed the nine-minute mark is ideal as the calm-before-the-storm, as no sooner have you positioned yourself for a long crawl to the end, you get shaken back to life by more dissonance. It’s end Toll Of The Wound in the heaviest way possible.

In summary, Toll Of The Wound is crafted by human beings that believe that we're already at the apocalypse and yet it effects you in a way that doesn't seem possible. It provides a turning point that actually improves your outlook. From a doom record, that is pretty hard to do. In my opinion, that's what makes it special.